Time Out for Vengeance!
Summary * TEASER: The Creeper cheers on and helps Batman when he's fighting Hellgrammite. Afterwards, Creeper leaves to evade the arriving police officers. * MAIN PLOT: After Batman disappears following a fight with Catman, the Justice League International and Rip Hunter travel through time to stop the minions of Equinox from wiping out all the incarnations of Batman throughout time. Appearing in "Time Out for Vengeance!" TEASER Featured Characters: * Batman * Creeper (First full appearance) Villains: * Hellgrammite (First appearance) Items: * Batarang * Batrope Locations: * Gotham City MAIN EPISODE Featured Characters: * Batman * Justice League International ** Aquaman ** Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) ** Booster Gold ** Fire ** Guy Gardner ** Ice ** Martian Manhunter Supporting Characters: * Rip Hunter (First appearance) * Batmen Throughout Time: ** Cave Batman (First appearance) ** Pirate Batman (First appearance) ** Batmanicus (First appearance) ** Robot Batman (First appearance) Villains: * Equinox * Batman Revenge Squad * Catman * Dinosaurs * Kraken Other Characters: * Brother Power (In a photograph only) (First full appearance) * Hal Jordan (mentioned only) Items: * Batarang * Blue Beetle Scarab * Green Lantern Ring Locations: * Gotham City * Justice League Watchtower * Rome * Bat Tree Vehicles: * Time Sphere Synopsis In a construction site high above the streets of Gotham, Batman is fighting Hellgrammite, an insect villain. He finally asks his teammate, the Creeper, for some help. Creeper prefers to cheerlead. When Batman goes after Hellgrammite, the villain snares him into cocoon and prepares to turn him into an insect slave. Creeper drops down and attacks, while Batman frees himself. The two heroes take down Hellgrammite and Batman admits that even the hopelessly insane are useful in the fight against crime. The police arrive and try to arrest Creeper, who makes a hasty exit. Catman takes his giant mechanical cat on a robbery rampage through Gotham, and Batman quickly defeats him. But before he can deliver the final blow, he fades away. Aboard the Justice League satellite, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are playing a game while Guy Gardner glances admiringly at Ice. He slides over to where she’s reading a romance novel and tries to make conversation without success. Martian Manhunter arrives and irritably points out that Booster is five minutes late for monitor duty. As Booster leaves, Guy picks a fight with him and Martian Manhunter has to break them up. Fire and Aquaman arrive to tell the others that they have a problem. Their teammate Rip Hunter, Time Master, has arrived to warn them that a group of assassins are travelling through time, eliminating past ancestors of Batman. As a result, the present-day Batman was never born. The longer they wait, the greater the chance they will forget their comrade. Martian Manhunter stays in the present while Rip Hunter takes the other team members back into the past. They split up into three teams, and Guy Gardner and Ice go to the primeval era. They find some cavemen, and Ice wonders if they’ll see any cavemen. Guy points out that cavemen and dinosaurs didn’t exist at the same time, but a dinosaur arrives and attacks Ice. Guy holds the dinosaur off momentarily, and a hero arrives to drive it off: a primitive Batman, riding a mastodon. He takes them to his secret hideout, a Bat Tree. Cave-Batman is interested in making Ice his mate, but before he can pursue the matter, one of the android assassins teleports in. He summons pterodactyls to attack the three heroes. Guy is knocked into the supports, and Ice gets Cave-Batman out as the Bat Tree collapses around them. Guy destroys the android assassin and collects a sample. Cave-Batman complains that they wrecked his Bat-Tree, but before he and Guy can start a fight, Ice uses the recall unit to teleport herself and Guy away. Rip dumps out Booster and Blue Beetle into the ocean. A ship pulls up and hauls them aboard, and Pirate Batman confronts them. He explains that he fights for justice against pirates. When Pirate Batman wonders what they want, another android assassin appears and attacks the ship, summoning a sea monster. Pirate Batman and Blue Beetle defeat the monster while Booster destroys the android. The Corsair Crusader invites them to join his crew, but they say they have other business and activate the recall signal. Rip drops Fire and Aquaman off in ancient Rome. Aquaman immediately pretends to be Neptune, but attracts the attention of the soldiers. They think the two heroes are escaped slaves, and Fire advises Aquaman to play along since Batman is nearby. He reluctantly agrees and they’re taken away in a cage. However, Batmanicus rides up in his chariot and tells the citizens to rise up. He frees Aquaman and Fire, who help him defeat the Roman soldiers. Another android appears and stuns Aquaman and Fire, and animates a metal statue to attack Batmanicus. Aquaman recovers and brings it down directly onto the android, destroying it. Aquaman mentions that Batmanicus is as heroic as the Batman in their era, and quickly teleports away with Fire. Back on the JLI satellite, Rip warns them that Batman hasn’t reappeared. The six JLI time travelers no longer remember Batman, and Rip and Martian Manhunter realize that they’ll soon forget as well. They analyze the fragment of android and determine that it came from the future. Rip explains that there must be a Batman in the future, and his death will cause a chain reaction that eliminates the others. The heroes analyze the point of the origin of the piece and travel into the future. They enter a large building and enter a vast chamber. Inside is a monitor, and on it appears the face of Equinox. He tells them that they should have stayed out of the matter, and they’ll pay for their interference. Equinox opens a door and reveals Robot Batman, captive and in great agony. The villain explains that he was the keeper of the cosmic balance, until he sought to remake the universe in his own image. Batman stopped Equinox, shattering his consciousness into a dozen fragments scattered through time. The fragment representing Equinox’s hate found its way to the future, insinuated itself into the computer network, and put its plan into action. It created a revenge squad and sent them back to kill all of the Batmen. With the destruction of the robot Batman, Equinox will have his revenge. When the heroes prepare to stop Equinox, more assassin robots come in and open fire. The JLI is soon overwhelmed, but the Robot Batman breaks free. Tired of Batman’s constant interference, Equinox merges all of its robots into one and transmits it’s consciousness into the giant construct. It makes short work of Robot Batman, but the Circuit Crusader has one final strategy. He fires a Batarang into the time portal mechanism, turning it on and summoning his three past selves. The four of them destroy the Equinox fragment. Rip and Martian Manhunter arrive with their Batman, who thanks his counterparts. However, they realize that there are eleven more fragments, meaning they haven’t heard the last of Equinox. Trivia * The episode had references from Grant Morrison's The Return of Bruce Wayne storyline. Category:Episodes Category:Season Three